Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1887-03-05

study and experiments OF scores OF
scientific men, and the mechanical
ingenuity of hundreds of inventors,
had been drawn upon, by the railway
managers to make an engine and car
which should carry me with great
speed in entire safety, and land me
at my destination in time to transact
my business. Different railway mana
gers had consulted together to have
their trains so connect that / should
get through with the least possible
loss of time.
The cheapness with which the
whole thing is done is one of its
marvels. Fifty years ago it would
have been quite incredible that these
monopolists should have carried
passenger at the rate of forty or fifty
miles an hour at the rate of two cents
mile.
Where does the grinding and OPP
preston come in? / am sure it is
not on the railway.
Possibly those who know more
may reply that l entirely misunder-
stand the matter in dispute. The
real cause of the complaint may be
not that these railways do not serve
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the public in the best way they can,
but that they are owned and man.
aged by very hateful, selfish, proud,
overbearing set of men, who have
managed to accumulate from one
million to two hundred million of
dollars each. If this is the case,
Immediately raise the question of
common sense as against sentiment.
say boldly that do not care how
selfish, proud, wicked, and overbear-
ing the managers and ownersofthese
roads may be, nor do l care if they
own one million or one thousand
million dollars, if they only arrange
their trains to suit my convenience
and convey me at the lowest rates.
The fact that our great trunk lines
OF railway carry a ton of freight a
thousand miles for six or seven dollars
may seem like little fact, but in
reality it is very big one, because it
is general average result of the price
at which they serve all the millions
of people who live in the, Western
and Middle States.
This great big fact completely swal-
lows up all the little facts that one or
two railways have no fixed prices,
and charge whatever they think a
customer can be made to pay, that
some others make discriminating
rates, charging one man more than
they do another for the same services,
and that yet others charge more for a
short haul than for long one. Carry
ing passengers forty miles an hour for
two or three cents a mile is a fact
which outweighs all we can say about
watered stocks, just as the fact of the
"Etruria" carrying a thousand pas
sengers across the ocean at a speed of
twenty miles an hour outweighs all
we can say about the badness of the
coffee these passengers have to drink.
/ admit that there is much that is
wrong in the relation of railroad cor
porations to the public. Itisa wrong
upon the people that nearly all our
prominentand influential public men,
including members of Congress and
members of state legislatures, travel
free wherever they wish to 60. lam
ready to do anything l can to correct
this wrong. tits wrong that corpora
tons of any kind can own and man.
age state legislatures. 1t is wrong
when courts are under the influence
of such corporations. 1t is a wrong
when railroad charges one person
more than another for the same SER
vice. We may sonsider these wrongs
from different points of view; for ex-
, ample from one point Of view with
reference to their nature and remedy,
and from another point with the OBJ
ject of understanding their connec-
ton with the benefits rendered by
, the roads. 1t is from the latter stand
point that the matter should first be
considered.
1t is not correct to say that corpora.
tons corrupt legislators. No intlu.
ence can corrupt an honest man. II
corporations practice bribery with
success, it is only because they have
corrupt men to deal with.
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